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The issue is the lack of notice (and the lack of a contingency plan). People came to this event from cold water climates, like Rochester, where the water is too cold this early in the season to train in open water without a wetsuit (and unsafe to do so). They did so knowing that Eagleman has always been a wetsuit race, and believing that the USAT rule posted on the race site indicated that water temps between 78-82 would make it wetsuit optional w/o the chance for awards. People DID NOT KNOW that temps 78 or higher would turn it into a mandatory non-wetsuit swim for everyone. If they knew that, this thread wouldn't exist. How you interpret the Ironman rule, and then suggest someone else's alternative inerpretation is unreasonalbe, really highlights the issue. If people knew the water temps were hovering around 78, and that at 78 the swim would convert to mandatory non wetsuit for everyone, people would have saved money and planned accordingly.
Someone's purported ignorance of the rule that day is analagous to racing a bike course you have never seen, and trusting that all the turns will be clearly marked and marshaled. They trust that the RD and his deputies will bail them out by telling them where to turn and if not, then they better hope they get it right. Exactly that scenario happened a couple of years ago at Columbia when Chris McCormack and a couple of other leading men rode off the course because they didn't know a turn and no marshal happened to be standing there. To their credit, they acknowledged their responsibility: stuff happens sometimes. It's up to the athlete to know the rules before race day.
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At the pre-race meeting, the RD asked "how many of you are doing your first 70.3 race"? More than half raised their hands. It's no secret that this wasn't a field of 2200 elite athletes competing for a Kona spot. They marketed this event as an ideal first timer's race, and they confirmed that at the pre-race meeting, when they also confirmed it was a wetsuit swim.
Here are the questions no one seems able to answer: Why did the race director tell everyone on Saturday it would be a wetsuit swim and that the water was 76.something (to resounding applause amongst the racers in attendance)? How did the river heat up over 2 degrees overnight? Please, tell me how the river heated up over 2 degrees overnight.
I don't know. I was not there. Giving you the benefit of any doubt, look to my earlier post on the process of measuring water temperature in the day before and the morning of the race. Can the water change two degrees overnight? I have no idea (physicists and meterologists, help!). Maybe they took a bad reading the day before? Maybe someone dumped an ice chest 10 meters away from where they dropped the thermometer. Who knows? What every athlete should know is that the ruling is not carved in stone until race time, and then it is the head referee's call, without regard to anything the RD did, or did not, say at the meeting the day before.
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Don't lead people to believe it's a wetsuit swim all along, including the day before the race, and then tell people while in transition a couple of hours before the swim starts that the water temp went up 2 degrees overnight, that the race is now non wetsuit for everyone, and that the 78-82 optional wetsuit/no award rule doesn't apply.
See above. That is exactly the procedure called for in the rules. Yes, it is rare. In fact I have never seen it changed from the day before the race, but that is what's called for if the temp is 78 or above.
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The reason people are upset about this is because they DIDN'T KNOW it could happen, and were being led to believe all along that it was a wetsuit swim. It's irrelevant whether you personally liked the RD's call or not, and it's irrelevant whether you think people should learn to swim better.
People had a right to know and plan accordingly.
I would take your statement and turn it around: people have a responsibility to plan accordingly, including the foreseeable possibility (not certainty, not even likelihood, but the possibility) that they would not be permitted to wear a wetsuit. It seems like you did not have the Eagleman experience you were hoping for, so that is always disappointing and you have my sympathy for that. But if your disappointment is based solely on having your wetsuit taken from you in transition on race morning, then I think it is sorely misplaced.